If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the Forum Help by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Did anyone else catch the story on 9 News last night where Minister for the Enviroment Vicky Darling was talking up the Moreton Bay Green Zones and how well they were working?
She quite clearly stated "Snapper and crabs were on the increase" in green zones (MBMP?)
Less than a year ago Sanpper were in decline so we had a 6 week closure and since then a reduction in bag limits from 5 to 4.

I didn't catch the name of the bloke at the end of the report but I suspect the report they were refering to was the CSIRO partially completed floating around.
A search of Vicky Darling or Craig Wallaces media statements has nothing. No info on the story on the 9 News website. CSIRO has no release on the report either. Is there a story in todays Sunday Mail ? (don't get the Sunday Mail in Weipa)
I certainly hope this isn't an ALP beat up pre-election based on an irrelvant report spun to their advantage ?

If anyone finds a link to the story please put it up, i'm keen to find out what report little Darling was refering to.

I have just emailed the Minister requesting names and the report. Lets see if I even get an answer! Below is the email sent today.

Minister Vicky Darling

With regards to channel nine news story regarding the increase of Snapper & crabs in the Green Zones in SEQ, could you please advise who wrote the report. I would like to see a copy of the report as well, this could be emailed to this address. Would you be able to do this?

With an election approaching, I consider all parties fishing policies to be very important in my decision as to whom I will direct my vote to. I would like to have these stories/reports confirmed to be factual and available to the public for assessment, not just accept what has been said on the news as a general statement without seeing the extent of the studies.

Mr. John Crone OAM, the Chairman of Sunfish Queensland, the peak body representing recreational fishers, is highly critical of the monitoring program report of Moreton Bay Marine Park produced by the Department of Environment and Resource Management, and released by Minister Vicky Darling earlier this week.

Mr. Crone said that the Moreton Bay Marine Park monitoring report has been reviewed for Sunfish by Dr. Barry Pollock, a scientist and fishery manager with considerable experience in Queensland and overseas. The Sunfish review shows many technical flaws in the monitoring report and a bias by the Department of Environment and Resource Management to support their position.

Mr. Crone said that the membership of Sunfish regard the Government’s marine park monitoring report on Moreton Bay as political “spin” in support of the massive areas of green zones in Moreton Bay. It is definitely not a balanced scientific assessment.

Mr. Crone also said that the money spent by the Government - $4.6million over five years – was a serious waste given the poor standard of the Moreton Bay Marine Park monitoring program and report. A survey on the newly created artificial reefs would show exactly the same result and establishing more of them would be a more productive use of public monies.

The Minister would have us believe that all green areas were productive when in fact the green areas covering snapper habitat are less than 20% of the total green areas and mud crab habitat is less than 12%. Additionally there were no assessments done before the declaration so it is irresponsible to say that they have improved. Comparing an established snapper ground with an adjacent sand bank will certainly give you the “desired result”.

Dr. Pollock said that the current marine park zoning arrangements in Moreton Bay are virtually useless from the perspective of managing fish stocks for sustainability as the fish in Moreton Bay are migratory and do not reside in one area.

All these ensure sustainability of our precious fishery resources in Moreton Bay. Annual fishery status reports are published by the Queensland Government fishery agency and indicate the healthy status of our fish stocks, and where additional fishery management restrictions may be appropriate.

Dr. Pollock strongly supports that our recreational fisheries must be managed so that there is long-term sustainability and healthy fish stocks. Restrictive marine park zoning is useless for recreational fishing because it takes away productive fishing grounds and concentrates all the fishing activity, commercial and recreational, into smaller areas.

Misleading and poorly researched finding by the Department of the Environment to justify previous bad decisions does little for the Department’s or the Minister’s credibility. This is just a repeat of the manufactured science to close Grey Nurse Shark areas to fishing and the poor decision to allow commercial netting in Yellow zones.

Anglers should be asking their Government Members just who is managing Fisheries – DERM or Fisheries Queensland.

On 13 February 2012, the Hon Vicky Darling, Queensland Minister responsible for marine parks, issued a media statement about her Department’s monitoring program associated with the Moreton Bay Marine Park, and referred to the new departmental report on the subject.

Within the Sunfish organisation concerns about statements in the DERM monitoring program report were raised by members of the Sunfish Management Committee, and by the two relevant Sunfish regional branches, Sunfish North Moreton and Sunfish South Moreton. The Sunfish Scientific Officer was requested by Sunfish to review the DERM monitoring program report.

Moreton Bay Marine Park (MBMP)

A major rezoning of MBMP was implemented in 2009. Details are summarised in the DERM publication “Moreton Bay Marine Park User Guide”. Zoning is the primary tool used to manage MBMP. The aims of the zoning arrangements are to (quote):

-protect biodiversity
-ensure the continued existence of the unique species and habitat
-provide greater protection for threatened species
-support sustainable uses of the marine park
-protect important recreational, cultural, educational and scientific values
The DERM MBMP monitoring program

Prior to the 2009 rezoning, DERM commenced a monitoring program “to evaluate the health of the marine park”. Funding of $4.6million was provided for the monitoring program over five years. The joint monitoring program is carried out by DERM, CSIRO, Qld University, Griffith University, Sunshine Coast University and DEEDI.

The current report “Moreton Bay Marine Park Monitoring Program February 2012” is a compilation of reports and contributions provided by authors affiliated with the aforementioned organisations. The DERM report purports to be based on sound science and well-constructed monitoring arrangements.
The DERM report fails to acknowledge that the management of the fisheries of Moreton Bay is the responsibility of another Queensland Government agency – Fisheries Queensland(FQ).

FQ already monitors all the main fisheries of Queensland, including those of Moreton Bay, and publishes annual fisheries status reports on the health of fish stocks. One must ask why DERM is monitoring and reporting on fisheries in Moreton Bay when this is the role of FQ, and already being done and reported by that agency?

Who is managing the fisheries of Queensland DERM or FQ – or both? The situation is very confusing, especially when the two agencies have differing views about the status of fisheries within Moreton Bay.
Review by the Sunfish Scientific Officer

The comments, concerns and criticisms provided in this review by the Sunfish Scientific Officer on the DERM report are primarily from the perspective of recreational fishing, and are based on the scientific rigor or otherwise of the findings and statements in the DERM report. The sections of the DERM report are reviewed in the order presented in that report. Comments and opinions in this review are those of the Sunfish Scientific Officer, and are provided primarily to the Sunfish membership as expert advice for consideration.
Specific comments by the Sunfish Scientific Officer

Section 1 Introductory section: MBMP zoning and monitoring program
MBMP is supposed to be a multiple-use area controlled primarily by zoning arrangements. However the introductory section shows bias in emphasising conservation/preservation aspects, and it foreshadows concern about fishing as an “extractive activity”, detrimental to the integrity of MBMP.

Community and stakeholder groups contributing to the program are mentioned (Birds Australia and Traditional Owners). Whilst recreational fishing is later in the report identified as the single most important and popular activity within MBMP, recreational fishing organisations were not engaged in the monitoring program. (For example some 50+ fishing clubs regularly operate in MBMP – why have these important stakeholders been excluded from direct input to the monitoring program?).

Importantly the report fails to acknowledge that the recreational fisheries of Moreton Bay are very strictly managed and monitored by another Qld Government agency, Fisheries Queensland. This lack of recognition by DERM that fisheries management is primarily the role of another agency which already does a responsible job in ensuring the sustainability and responsible management of the fisheries of Moreton Bay is a MAJOR concern and shortcoming of the MBMP monitoring report.
Section 2 What do SE Queenslanders feel about the marine park?

This section contrasts past media articles about the bay with recent information from interviews with “key stakeholders”. Eight such stakeholders are listed (quote):

A later section of the DERM report shows that more than 60% of boat users in MBMP are recreational fishers. It is therefore a major shortcoming that recreational fishing groups and organisations, of which some 50+ operate within MBMP, are not identified separately in the above list of key-stakeholders, and engaged in the interviews. This has resulted in an anomaly in the results whereby the views of recreational fishers, the major user group of MBMP have not been properly identified.
Section 3 Human Use of MBMP

(a) How has the marine park affected the use of the marine park?

This section reports the results of a survey of boat users within MBMP. This section is reasonable from a technical viewpoint. However the shore-based users such as beach and jetty recreational fishers have been omitted from the study.

The survey shows that more than 60% of boat users in MBMP are recreational fishers. In other words recreational boat fishers are by far one of the largest user-groups in MBMP.

The report down-plays the past importance of the new green zones as recreational fishing locations, and the concerns expressed by recreational fishers about the impact of the green zones on their fishing activities. The authors of this section have not interpreted their results impartially as would be expected from scientists.

A reader of this section of the report would easily deduce that the authors have not been impartial but have presented a biased case in support of the new green zones.

(b). Fish of offshore reefs

The authors of this section have used baited underwater videos (BUV) to determine the numbers and “biomass” (size?) of selected fish species in rocky/reef areas of MBMP. The use of BUV in this study to determine abundance and size of a small number of reef-associated species is highly questionable. Species like Snapper are shown to be present, but it is dubious to make any conclusions about numbers and biomass in the various zones based on the methodology and results of this survey.

(c). Inshore monitoring of crabs and fish in MBMP

This section makes many dubious conclusions about the abundance of crabs and fish in green zones and other zones in MBMP. The results of this section are questionable from a scientific viewpoint for several reasons:

-the project methodology is poorly described.
-the authors fail to acknowledge the current regulations applying to the species under investigation, and give the impression that these fisheries are managed primarily by the MBMP zoning arrangements.
-the authors’ report on the fished component of the stocks such as large male mud crabs and legal-sized fish, their data on the unfished components (undersize and female) is not properly reported.

-following from the above point, the authors report reductions in abundance of the fished component of the populations (e.g. mud crabs and bream) outside of green zones. This is not such a problem if the sustainability of the stocks is ensured via traditional fisheries management interventions such as minimum sizes to enable the stock to spawn before capture, and protection of female crabs.

-the sampling methodology for fish populations is questionable – limited use of baited lines and lures
-the numbers of fish/crabs sampled by the apparatus chosen and reported are extremely small

(d) Trawling closures and soft sediment habitats

This is not directly relevant to recreational fishing.

(e) Other lessons from the MBMP monitoring program.

From a scientific viewpoint this is an appalling section of the report. Without any data or references to scientific studies, the authors make sweeping and possibly erroneous statements such as “Connectivity between reefs and mangroves can enhance the ability of marine reserves to promote fish abundance.”

The reader can get the impression that this section is about political “spin” in support of restrictive zoning in MBMP.

(f) Shorebirds on ocean-exposed beaches of MBMP.

The authors are unreasonably critical of beach users of which recreational fishers using 4WD vehicles are a major user-component.

This section of the report does not acknowledge the exposed ocean beach areas that are closed to 4WD use on North Stradbroke, Moreton and Bribie Islands.

The supposition that collection of pipis by recreational fishers could impact on the feeding of birds like pied oystercatchers is dubious.

The authors spend time discussing the importance of dune areas as nesting sites. The boundary of MBMP is the high water line. So these comments are irrelevant to the MBMP monitoring program.

Of major concern is the photograph showing a dead crested tern lying on 4WD tyre tracks – and the caption “a dead tern killed by a vehicle. Photo DERM.”

This is most likely another example of a “beat-up” aimed at unfairly and unethically portraying 4WD users in a very bad light. Crested terns are extremely cautious of beach vehicles and hence it is impossible to run over one as shown in the dubious photograph. The authors and DERM should provide an explanation.

FINAL COMMENTS

This report on monitoring MBMP is more about “spin” to show the new zoning of MBMP in a good light. Its scientific rigor is dubious to say the least. It would not stand the test of normal scientific peer review.
Dr. Barry Pollock
3398 9306

Of major concern is the photograph showing a dead crested tern lying on 4WD tyre tracks – and the caption “a dead tern killed by a vehicle. Photo DERM.”

This is most likely another example of a “beat-up” aimed at unfairly and unethically portraying 4WD users in a very bad light. Crested terns are extremely cautious of beach vehicles and hence it is impossible to run over one as shown in the dubious photograph. The authors and DERM should provide an explanation.

LP

More election spin.
London to a brick that was a set-up photo supplied to them by a conservation group, just like the platypus in the opera house trap photo used to try to ban the use of opera house traps for catching red claw.